Producer Responsibility Group Taps New Firm to Manage Paper, Packaging Recycling in British Columbia

A British Columbia producer responsibility organization has selected a new operation to manage its residential packaging and paper recycling program that will begin serving the region in May.

The Vancouver-based Multi-Material BC (MMBC) has chosen Green by Nature EPR (GBN) to manage the post-collection system for the MMBC program, which will serve about 1.25 million households beginning May 19, the venture said in a news release.

GBN was recently founded by three recycling industry companies – Cascades Recovery, Emterra Environmental and Merlin Plastics. MMBC selected GBN through a competitive request for proposals.

GBN will manage the processing and marketing of about 185,000 metric tons of packaging and paper after it’s collected from household curbsides, multi-family buildings and depots throughout the province.

The GBN system will bring $32 million in new investment to the province, including two new facilities. There will be a container facility in the lower mainland and a material recovery facility (MRF) in Nanaimo.

GBN will use more than 20 recycling subcontractors to be part of the MMBC post-collection system.

MMBC plans to use existing recycling infrastructure to achieve a 75-percent recovery rate for packaging and printed paper.

In 2011 British Columbia updated its recycling regulation to shift recycling management responsibility of paper and packaging from governments to business. The MMBC program is the first of its kind in Canada.